Leader Resource 3: Common Vision Survey Responses

These are some responses to the Common Vision Planning Committee survey as reported to the UUA Board of Trustees, January 1989.

I try to be to be tolerant of it even though I’m not very comfortable about it. I try to be welcoming. I guess you could say my feelings and thoughts are inconsistent. Perhaps education could change my feelings.

By insisting on civil rights and screaming for attention and demanding acceptance, they ask more than the mere compassion they deserve… The UUA should concern itself with worthier issues (such as) civil rights of blacks, racial justice, hunger here at home, shelter, poverty.

…they make me proud of the UUA and more certain of staying in the Association.

I am very compassionate toward the blind, deaf, physically handicapped, poor, black, abused adults and children, but hardly see the need for compassion for gays, lesbians, or bisexuals… Of course, this is one way to reduce the population.

I don’t want the bedroom to enter the church. The sexual practices of a man and/or a woman should be left at home.

…it is love we’re talking about. In a world that tolerates the obscenity of nuclear arms, surely we can work out an accommodation for a way of love that differs from our own…

…Our minister is more than our religious leader. She is a symbol, she is our representative in the community. Publicly we are thought odd enough, without our symbolic leader openly, publicly proclaiming gay or lesbian preferences.

Their sexual behavior is abnormal and disgusting, no matter what they say! Compassion and counseling is needed for such people. I think everyone would be happier if you’d all stayed “in the closet.” I would leave a church headed by a gay or lesbian minister…

…my husband and I continue to learn and learn and appreciate and appreciate because (of our gay friends).

Dealing with “relationships” and “sexuality” as human issues will break down barriers between gays and non-gays… I want to make gays feel welcome as people, not “gays.”

I loathe them regardless. They actively prey on young people, have multiple sex partners daily and do spread AIDS. Sex is the over-riding concern in their tawdry lives; all else is meaningless. Many…are hate-filled anti-straight.

…(gays, lesbians and bisexuals) need relief from discrimination, and support for acceptance as individuals of inherent worth.

As a black person, I strongly resent any comparison of my racial group with the movement. The AIDS problem further complicates all aspects of this issue.

We are in an ideal position to offer acceptance and support of alternative family structures…

I cannot handle too many around me. I get uncomfortable. I feel they are unhealthy. Unclean…Let them stay in their space, and I’ll stay in mine.

I would like to see one’s sexual preference become immaterial, just like (maybe, finally, someday) the color of one’s skin… The fact that in our society love may be expressed only with a person of the right gender, at the right time, in the right place, and in certain forms is an outrage.

I make them uncomfortable and they make me uncomfortable. Let’s just be polite and stay away from each other as one does from other humans who make one uncomfortable.

Divergent sexual behavior exhibited by gays, lesbians and bisexuals needs to be accepted as a fact of life, both ancient and modern, but need not be approved of or offered as a role model pattern for children or young adults.

My denomination has gone beyond a paper endorsement of gay rights to a living endorsement in each member’s heart of a fellow person’s right to an equal quality of life.